A twice-convicted Belgian paedophile who moved into a victim’s home after being released from a Cambodian prison plans to marry the victim’s mother, national media reported Tuesday.

Anti-trafficking police said Philippe Dessart, who was released from prison April 4, proposed to his victim’s mother shortly before he left for Belgium on June 3, The Cambodia Daily reported.

Dessart was released after serving three years of an 18-year prison term for abusing the then-13-year-old boy after a successful appeal of his sentence.

Anti-paedophile groups said in April that they were shocked to discover Dessart had moved in with his victim, now 16, after his release and expressed concern over a younger male sibling also living in the house.

Police said Dessart travelled to Belgium to arrange documents for the marriage and would return to Cambodia in the next few weeks.

Phnom Penh Municipal Court sentenced Belgian Philippe Dessart to 18 years in prison for child sex abuse, finding that the 47-year-old former teacher was an incorrigible repeat sex offender.

A Belgian court convicted Dessart of child rape and torture in 1994, sentencing him to five years, of which he served three.

Frederic Huyghe said that his brother Pierre, one of Dessart’s three Belgian victims, had expressed relief when told of the verdict but felt concern for the family of his Cambodian victim. “I know it ate at my father for years,” Huyghe said.

Dessart was arrested April 10 at a Phnom Penh guesthouse in the company of a boy, then 13 years old, who authorities said was naked and had engaged in sexual relations with Dessart for two to three years.

In his verdict, Ke Sakhorn said Dessart paid the victim’s family for access to the boy, whom he repeatedly abused. The Belgian had recanted an incriminating confession to police in an effort to escape prosecution, the judge said. “Philippe Dessart was incorrigible when he came to Cambodia and committed debauchery against the boy,” he added.

Dessart’s defense team had hammered away at length at the prosecution’s case, pointing out that all testimony implicating Dessart had been recanted and that police searched Dessart’s room without a warrant and provided no physical evidence. Dessart testified that police had offered to help him if he confessed to the crime.

However Keo Thea, deputy director of the municipal anti-trafficking police, said Dessart had freely confessed during interrogation and even acted out his relations with the boy.

“He said he wanted to marry [the boy] and I said only in the future when he becomes an adult,” Keo Thea testified.

Investigators say any time a child alleges abuse, they take it seriously and so should adults – especially educators.

Indianapolis – An IPS teacher has been arrested for child molestation.

John Marshall Community High School math teacher Lee Tibbetts was placed on administrative leave by Indianapolis Public Schools with pay during the investigation. Metro police sex crimes detective Greg Norris arrested Tibbetts after a thorough investigation, but the case is far from over.

Tibbetts, 33, faces five counts of child molestation and he was also arrested for one count of child solicitation involving a second student last year. One of Tibbetts’ 13-year-old male students claims he was repeatedly molested by the teacher in classrooms at the school.

“Alleging that he engaged in improper conduct during school hours on school property,” said IMPD Sgt. Paul Thompson.

The student also claims Tibbetts threatened to fail him if he ever told anyone.

Eyewitness News has now learned that IPS is investigating how another teacher handled information when the 13-year-old told her about the abuse in March. A school administrator also allegedly scorned Tibbetts after finding him and the boy in a locked classroom, but never suspected misconduct.

But now, sex crimes detectives are convinced that Tibbetts crossed the line.

“Because that’s where this case has gone from the beginning. We had one victim that had come forward, the complaint had been filed and the investigation was initiated. After that investigation was initiated, we heard additional complaints, at least one that has been verified of which he has been arrested for,” said Sgt. Thompson.

The investigation is ongoing, since detectives believe there is a possibility of other victims. Tibbetts first came under investigation in August 2008 when a 15-year-old boy complained to his mother about the teacher’s sexual advances.

“Asking him about his sexual preference, placing his hand on his knee, offering money. Stuff he should not have done as a teacher,” said the victim’s mother.

But the school dismissed the case, telling the boy’s mother the allegations were unfounded.

“The kids who came forward, I would say that they were pretty honest with what they were conveying to me,” White said.

White said he suspected the teacher all along and didn’t trust him alone with students.

“Everyone is innocent until proven guilty,” White said. “But as a precaution with students, I wanted him removed.”

Investigators say any time a child alleges abuse, they take it seriously and so should adults – especially educators.

“It needs to be brought to the attention of law enforcement immediately so we can investigate,” Sgt. Thompson said.

Police believe there may be more victims waiting to come tell their own story.

“Once this is out in the media, there’s always the possibility of someone else coming forward and additional charges and investigation,” Sgt. Thompson said.

Tibbetts denies any wrongdoing, including improper contact with the victims. As part of their investigation, detectives are looking at the teacher’s computer and phone records. He will make his first court appearance next week.

The founder and director of a private Tualatin-based arts program was arrested today and accused by police of raping a young boy five years ago.

Melissa L. Stephens, 55, was accused of engaging in sexual acts, including intercourse, with the boy, who was about 10 or 11 years old, said Jennifer Massey, spokeswoman for Tualatin Police.

Stephens is founder and director of Willow Cottage Arts and Academics Program, a private arts program offering alternative education opportunities for children. It caters to students from kindergarten to the eighth grade, according to its web site.

The private school also conducts a summer arts program at Brown’s Ferry Park in Tualatin. According to the school web site, the summer program has been in existence since 1987. Massey said it runs for six weeks and caters to approximately 300 to 400 children ranging in age from 3 to 18.

Stephens was arrested at the school, located at 18815 S.W. Boones Ferry Road, at 10 a.m., Massey said.

Massey said police learned of Stephens’ alleged involvement with the boy on Monday.

Massey did not say now Stephens knew the boy, whether he was a student at the school or if police believe there may be other victims.

Massey said the investigation was handled jointly by Tualatin Police and the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office.

Stephens was accused of first-degree rape, first-degree sodomy and first-degree sex abuse. Stephens is scheduled to be arraigned at 3 p.m. Thursday in the Washington County Courthouse.

WALLA WALLA, Wash. – A trial is set for next Wednesday in Walla Walla Superior Court to determine whether a prison inmate completing a sentence for child molesting should be committed as a sex predator.

The state attorney general’s office says 58-year-old Kenneth Longsdorff is a pedophile. The Walla Walla Union-Bulletin reports he also has a previous conviction for raping three boys.

The civil commitment trial will determine whether he will be locked up indefinitely for treatment at the Special Commitment Center for sex predators on McNeil Island.

Gwinnett County police say a 26-year-old man posed as a teenage girl on the Web site MySpace.com to lure a 13-year-old boy for sex.

Antoine Louis Johnson is being held in the Gwinnett County Detention Center without bond. Johnson was arrested Friday and charged with aggravated child molestation and child molestation.

Authorities said the boy told a guardian early last week that he had been molested in June 2008.

The boy said he met a girl on the social networking site who promised sex if he would allow her brother to perform sexual acts on him, according to police.

Johnson picked up the boy near the entrance of his neighborhood and took him to a nearby vacant house for sex, authorities said.

Police learned that Johnson contacted a friend of the boy and sought a meeting, again pretending to be a 16-year-old girl.

Johnson arranged a meeting Friday with the boy and his friend at the intersection of Indian Shoals Road and Biltmore Oaks Drive, police said. Investigators approached Johnson and took him into custody.

Kelli Hussey was previously convicted in April 2002 ,of first-degree sexual abuse in connection with illicit relations with a 12-year-old boy.

A 34-year-old convicted sex offender was sentenced to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to additional sex charges involving a minor.

Kelli Nicole Hussey, also known as Kelli Champion, pleaded guilty to one count of first-degree rape, one count of first-degree sodomy and one count of second-degree rape in connection with illicit relations with a minor.

She was arrested May 31, 2007, following an investigation by the Coffee County Sheriff’s Department and the Coffee County Department of Human Resources. Circuit Judge Jeff Kelly sentenced Hussey Friday to 10 years on each charge with each sentence to run concurrently.

Hussey, whose address on the Department of Public Safety Registered Sex Offender Web site is listed as 28 County Road 623, was previously convicted in April 2002 ,of first-degree sexual abuse in connection with illicit relations with a 12-year-old Coffee County boy.

According to prior reports in The Enterprise Ledger, she was sentenced to three years in prison before returning to Coffee County in 2005.

In compliance with state law, Hussey registered with the Alabama Department of Public Safety as a sex offender.

The Santa Rosa County Sheriffs Office has been searching for a registered Sex Offender, Joseph Christian Fontana aka Christian Fontana since a warrant for his arrest was issued in 2006.

Fontana disappeared from his residence at 1305 Green Acres Avenue in Fort Walton Beach after finding out that the Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office was conducting an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct by Fontana with minor children. Fontana’s whereabouts were unknown until this afternoon, when he was arrested by the U.S. Marshal’s Service in the Dominican Republic.

Joseph Christian Fontana was profiled in April 2009 on the television show “America’s Most Wanted”. The show aired in the Dominican Republic as well, due to suspicions of Fontana being in that area.

In late April 2009, a tip was received through “America’s Most Wanted” and forwarded to investigators at the Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office. The tip gave a specific address for Fontana in the Dominican Republic.

Due to Fontana being out of the country, the Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office submitted the case to the U.S. Marshal’s Florida Regional Fugitive Task Force and requested their assistance in tracking down and apprehending Fontana.

The information was given to the U.S. Marshal’s Foreign Field Office in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, in an attempt to locate and apprehend Fontana. At approximately 1600 hours central time, U.S. Marshal’s, with the assistance of law enforcement in the Dominican Republic, took Fontana into custody.

From 2001 until 2006 when he fled, Fontana had been visiting with a single mother and her three children in their home. He met the latest victim’s mother at a local church and he eventually committed offenses against her children.

A 4 month investigation into the activities of Fontana, a Registered Sex Offender, resulted in a warrant being issued for his arrest.Fontana has been arrested involving crimes against children 3 times in the past. Fontana was convicted in 1995 of lewd & lascivious behavior with male child less than 16 years of age.

Fontana was known to prey on single women who have young male children. The initial investigation was a collaborative effort involving the Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office, Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office, and The Department of Children and Families. Fontana’s also currently has 1 warrant in Okaloosa County.

The 1 warrant in Santa Rosa County is for the following charges: 25 Counts of Sexual Assault on a victim over 12, 25 Counts of Lewd & Lascivious behavior (conduct by persons 18 or older), 25 counts of Lewd & Lascivious behavior (exhibit by persons 18 or older victim less than 16), and 1 count of showing obscene material to a child. Fontana is being held in the custody of the U.S. Marshal’s in the Dominican Republic. It is currently not known as to when his extradition will occur. Further information will be released as it becomes available.

The Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office would like to offer their sincere gratitude to both “America’s Most Wanted” and the USMS for their diligent efforts in locating and apprehending Joseph Fontana.

Rumors that accused child molester Dr. William Ayres could avoid a criminal trial with a plea bargain were emphatically denied by both prosecution and defense attorneys who insist the disgraced child psychiatrist is marching toward a jury trial.

“We’ve never sought to plea bargain the case, we don’t plan to plea bargain the case, and we’re ready for trial,” said San Mateo County Chief Deputy District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe.

Doron Weinberg, Ayres’ defense attorney, said Friday there have not been “serious discussions” of a plea deal for the former San Mateo doctor.

Ayres, 77, is accused of molesting dozens of preadolescent male patients from as far back as the 1970s, though just seven accusers fall under the state’s statute of limitations, which requires such charges be brought by victims who are under 29 or born after 1998. He is formally facing 20 counts of felony molestation.

Pretrial motions filed in San Mateo County Superior Court in Redwood City last week were heard by Judge Beth Freeman, who was assigned to the trial on Monday. She granted the prosecution permission to call to the witness stand several men who claim Ayres molested them before the statute of limitations.

Prosecutors had requested that 17 alleged out-of-statute victims testify. While the judge permitted just four alleged victims to testify, she also allowed some of the parents to offer testimony against Ayres.

The judge rejected the defense’s motion to exclude testimony from Diana Emerson, a child abuse expert whom Wagstaffe said would offer insight into why children don’t report molestations right away.

There was no ruling on how many character witnesses Ayres could have take the stand on his behalf, but Weinberg said on Friday he had at least 15 people in mind to speak on the doctor’s behalf.

For most of his career, Ayres was one of San Mateo County’s most respected child psychiatrists, in 2002 receiving a lifetime achievement award from the Board of Supervisors for his work with youth. He served for more than a decade as president of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

Ayres admitted to performing physical examinations on juvenile psychiatric patients, sometimes of their genitals. His defense attorney has argued that these examinations were legitimate and routine practice that has been misunderstood by prosecutors and misinterpreted by the accusers.

“Dr. Ayres has had a distinguished career and he is not a child molester,” Weinberg said. “He has declared his innocence of all these charges and we hope that he will be vindicated at trial.”

One of the out-of-statute witnesses slated to testify for the prosecution spoke with Bay Area News Group several months before Ayres’ arrest, claiming he was molested by the psychiatrist in 1985 when he was 15 years old. Greg Hogue was one of the alleged victims who cooperated in the yearlong investigation leading up to Ayres’ April 2007 arrest.

Hogue told police in 2006 that his school district referred him to Ayres after a note he wrote to a classmate was misconstrued as a suicide threat.

Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday morning with a three-day hardship inquiry that will gauge whether potential jurors are able to sit for an eight-week trial. The process will end Wednesday and resume June 16. Opening statements could start by the end of that week, according to Wagstaffe.

Ayres remains out of custody on $750,000 bail. He is expected to return to court Monday for the continuation of pretrial motions.

A federal appeals court has upheld the 35-year prison sentence of a former Gainesville doctor convicted of child pornography.

Gregory Kapordelis, an anesthesiologist, was convicted in May 2007 of six counts of downloading child pornography and using boys to produce pornographic pictures between 2001 and 2004.

Among other claims, Kapordelis argued that the warrant for a search of his home, which yielded numerous computer images, was invalid because it was based on claims that he had molested boys in St. Petersburg, Russia. The initial charge, that he had traveled abroad to have sex with children, was later dropped.

A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected that and other arguments by Karpodelis in an opinion Monday.